Guidance, navigation, and control systems, such as land vehicle, aerospace, and military inertial systems, require inertial measurement units (IMUs) that have both high accuracy and high dynamic range. To meet the high accuracy and high dynamic range requirements, quartz accelerometers, fiber optical gyroscopes, and/or laser gyroscopes have been conventionally used. However, the use of quartz accelerometers, fiber optical gyroscopes, and/or laser gyroscopes have drawbacks as well. Specifically, IMUs based on these technologies are relatively expensive, large in size, and heavy in power consumption, as compared to micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) IMUs.
In current low cost IMUs, such as MEMS IMUs, the IMU either has high accuracy or has high dynamic measurement range. The invention disclosed herein addresses the need for a low cost IMU that has both high accuracy and high dynamic range.